Exile on Bridge Street

by Eamon Loingsigh

  “Richie?” Mother Mary says carefully.

  “Yeah.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “About what? You can’t send Anna to come and get me . . .”

  “I can, and I already did.”

  “I’m workin’, Ma, ya can’t send her to the docks no more . . .”

  “I ain’ scared o’ no one over there,” Anna says sternly to him.

  “It ain’t that,” Richie says, discouraged that he can’t express his thoughts. “It’s just that . . .”

  “Richie,” Mary says, coming around the counter and standing in front of him. “Have ye or the boys said anyt’in’ to anybody about what Bill told us?”

  “He said to keep quiet about it.”

  “And yez have?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right then.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Ye bhoys’re werkin’ with Connolly at the Fulton Ferry Landin’ an’ Donnelly in the Navy Yard?”

  “And sometimes down with The Lark an’ Big Dick at the Baltic Terminal too.”

  “And yez just do as yer told? No words on Bill’r nothin’?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Anybody talk about Non Connors? That he was set up?”

  “No.”

  “Dinny’s cousin, the golden-haired one, replacin’ Connors as Bill’s righthand?”

  “Mickey Kane? No one talks about it,” Richie says, looking at his mother sharply and searching for words. “I don’ . . . you’re not . . . don’ tell me what to do . . .”

  Mary ignores Richie’s attempts to confront her, looks at Anna, and speaks over him, “Dinny sent a bhoy over here with flowers fer Anna.”

  Richie blinks, “Who was it?”

  “That bhoy from Clare, Garrity.”

  Anna looks up to her brother to see his reaction, her mouth half open.

  “Don’ do a t’ing, Richie,” Mary says. “Be smart. Dinny and Bill’re fightin’ over ye. It’s obvious. They both want yer loyalty. Ye’ve gotta stay prudent here. Let ’em fight it out, those two, but goin’ after that Garrity bhoy again will only make t’ings worse. Petey already gave it to ’em good, no sense in doublin’ back now. Dinny made ’em come here with flowers fer yer sister, we could see it on his face that it wasn’t his own idea. Just let Bill’n Dinny fight it out among themselves . . .”

  “Let ’em fight it out?” Anna interrupts. “No, Bill is the only one for us, Ma. We’ve known him since day one. His family lived in the same building as us when we was young. We need to help Bill. He’ll be the man one day, everyone knows it, Dinny Meehan’s just keepin his seat warm is all . . .”

  “Anna,” Mary says calmly, though her voice is shaking. “Dinny put up the rent for this bikecycle shop . . .”

  “Richie earned that on his own when he beat Red Donnelly in a fight,” Anna raises her voice. “Look what he done to the Leighton fam’ly, Ma. Look what he done to Non Connors. He’s an animal.”

  “Still, it was Dinny’s money,” Mary yells over her daughter, then turns to her son. “What I’m sayin’ is it’s too early to choose sides, Richie. What if Dinny kills Bill? Everyone says Mickey Kane’s bein’ groomed fer takin’ over Red Hook. What if that? Ye listen to yer sister’n ye’ll be out on yer arse, ye will.”

  Richie does not answer.

  “I know,” Mary says looking away. “No response from ye. Ye don’ listen to yer poor ol’ Ma, but ye’ll listen to that Jew bhoy, Abe Harms. That’s fine, he’s got a voice o’ reason, I s’pose. What’s he tellin’ ye to do then?”

  Again Richie does not answer.

  “All right, that’s fine,” Mary says, still shaking. “Ye don’ listen to yer fam’ly. Certainly not to a woman. Ye listen to yer friends. Ye listen to men only. I understand it. Just be smart, Richie, is all I’m arskin’. If ye take one side over the other, ye might find this bikecycle shop burnt to the ground one day when them two men finally have it out. And they will have it out, mark it. The two toughest always do. Ye t’ink I haven’t seen all this before? Yer father and me brother, yer uncle Yake Brady and his bhoys back in our day? One day yer father’s a peacock, but when Yake Brady left the gang, yer da was no more than a feather duster. Left out, and we had no choice but to leave the Lower East Side for Brooklyn or else he’d get killt. Don’ put all yer eggs on one man over the other’s all I’m sayin’, Richie. Does that make sense to ye?”

  Richie looks toward Tiny Thomas on the floor, “Why ain’ he at school today?”

  “He’s sick,” Anna says.

  “Again?” Richie says, as Tiny Thomas looks up to his eldest brother without realizing they are talking about him.

  Mary walks round the counter again, turning her back to her children. Richie, Anna, and Tiny Thomas all watch her. Pensively, she places her palms on the counter and looks up, “All I ask fer is a healthy fam’ly, fed children, and the chance to move up and out of this place, yet I have the scars of a woman whose been t’rough terrible battles. Look at my face. Look at it. Is this the face a mother deserves? I was once beautiful like yer sister is. Men wanted me as they want her now. They fought over me and look how we’ve turned out. Anna?”

  “What?”

  “Ye listen to me an’ ye listen now,” Mary says angrily. “Ye tell Richie to go with Bill over Dinny and yer puttin’ us all at risk. The whole fam’ly. Ye t’ink Dinny won’t kill Richie? Look what he done to that Gilligan fella, would ye?”

  Richie looks away, shifts his weight off the wooden leg.

  “That’s right,” Mary says to Richie. “They say ye did it yerself. Killt the Gilligan fella with Abe and that Maher man at the soap factory under the order o’ Dinny Meehan. Is it true?”

  Anna looks at Richie, then to her mother, “And what if he did do it, Ma? So what?”

  “Well,” Mary says looking in her son’s eyes as Anna folds her arms indignantly. “Then ye did what the king said ye should and not some upstart. Good on ye then. Bill becomes king one day? Ye do what he says.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Miscarried Betrothal

  “DINNY,” SADIE SAYS TO HER SON. “Come over ’ere now, we’re almost done.”

  L’il Dinny has to use two hands to pick up an apple that he dropped on the grocer floor and when he stands, he hits his head on the cart inside the shop, begins crying.

  “Oh no,” Sadie says with a smile and picks him up. “Lemme rub it for yu and it’ll be gone.”

  “Cute kid,” says a voice from behind them. “Wish I had the chance to get to know ’em.”

  Sadie turns round and sees a figure in the dark, then grabs at L’il Dinny’s hand and pulls him up from under his armpits, “Da’by?”

  With a wet cough, Darby Leighton smirks and walks closer to Sadie and the boy, “Ye call ’em Dinny, eh?”

  “’At’s his fava’s name,” Sadie says with an apprehensive smile.

  “That right?” Darby says, looking at the child suspiciously.

  Sadie glances toward Mr. Cohnheim behind the butcher’s counter, a small and elderly man who does not recognize the fear in her face. She then looks back to her cousin and begins saying something, but stops.

  “Do I scare ya?” Darby says, his face pallid and bony.

  “No,” she says, holding L’il Dinny closer to her chest.

  “For what ya done to ya cousins?”

  “I didn’t . . .”

  “Ya know, when me an’ Pickles first came to Brooklyn, we used to live under a pier together wit’ Dinny Meehan while ya was still in London. Guy named Coohoo Cosgrave was the leader o’ our gang back then. He was crazy, Coohoo, but he saw Dinny as like the next big thing even though me’n Pickles had been around for mont’s. Pickles didn’ like Dinny. Didn’ listen to Dinny, an’ look what happened to Pickles.”

  “I don’ know a fing ’bout all that . . .”

  “Sure ya do.”

  “Da’by?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are yu sick? Can I get yu some food to eat? Yu
look ’ungry . . .”

  Darby looks at his cousin with a self-conscious glare, “That ain’ ya problem to fix no more. You chose to ignore us, so don’ play like ya care.”

  L’il Dinny’s squirming in Sadie’s arms takes away from her feeling sad about what her cousin had just said to her.

  “I wanted to go wit’ Dinny,” Darby says. “But I couldn’t. I got eighty-sixt instead when you’n him got married after the trial. Wasn’t my fault Pickles an’ Dinny hated each other.”

  “Dinny wanted bof o’ yu to join in. Dinny . . . Dinny said ’e looved me. Dinny courted after me, paid for us to get outta ’at rattrap we lived in and promised ’e would join our families togeva, but Pickles . . . Pickles just wouldn’t listen. Pickles has a mind o’ ’is own so ’e didn’t wanna listen . . . I’m sorry Da’by. I know it was you’n Pickles ’at saved all ’at money to get me outta East London, bring me an’ Frank ’ere. I’m so fankful and I’m so sorry fings’ve turned out the way they ’ave . . .”

  “Don’t be,” Darby says, his face gaunt and somber. “I see my older brother Frank’s in good wit’ Dinny. Got that job for ’em over in the soap factory. But I’m just lumped in wit’ Pickles ain’ I?”

  Sadie looks at her cousin, “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop bein’ sorry for things that don’ matter,” Darby says angrily. “Ya chose Dinny Meehan over ya fam’ly, but that don’ seem to bother ya, does it?”

  “Da’by . . .”

  “Are ya gonna tell ’em I came to see ya so he can send The Swede after me again?”

  Sadie puts L’il Dinny on the ground, but holds his hand tightly.

  “Ya know,” Darby stands closer to her. “One day Bill Lovett’s gonna kill ya husband. And I’m gonna know about it ahead o’ time. Maybe I’ll say somethin’ to ya. Warn ya. But maybe I won’t, either. There’s a lotta people out there want him dead. Cops an’ unions an’ businessmen an’ I-talians an’ ghosts all in between ’em too. All them guys? They know he’s real. They know what he does and who follows ’em. They’ll get ’em, one day. Until then, I’ll be out there. Driftin’ around, probably. Can’t work in Red Hook wit’ Bill. Can’t work for Dinny on the north docks. . . . Can’t talk to my own cousin unless I sneak up on her.”

  Sadie and Mr. Cohnheim watch as Darby turns round and walks toward the faded light of the front windows. L’il Dinny pulls on her arm to get away, but she holds his hand tighter and brings him close to her long dress and leg. Pushing away, he begins wincing and squirming uncomfortably.

  “No yu don’t,” she says with a tear on her face. “Yu’ll not be gettin’ ’way from me.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The Dead Coming

  OCTOBER, 1916

  BEFORE YET THE BLINKING OF DAWN does Thos Carmody come. He stands on the deck of a coasting lighter-barge as if floating. Disembarked and pulled by two harbor tugs off Manhattan’s Chelsea docks, then traveling south of Battery Park he now coasts toward Brooklyn’s Navy Yard. Up and rising in the quiet reaches of the black morn like a ghost come upon the living to reckon some mortal transgression done him, for as far as anyone knows in Brooklyn Thos Carmody is dead since April. But here he is. Alive and amongst the great churning traffic of the New York Harbor before even the sun can emerge from the east. The propellers of the port tugs up ahead of him bubbling under the water, yanking the slack. He drags from a hand-rolled cigarette and exhales into the East River fog.

  Much colder up in Buffalo where he hid over the past months, he is not bit by New York City’s October morning chill. Up there, Carmody met with his boss T. V. O’Connor, President of the International Longshoremen’s Association. O’Connor was on his way west to patch up his losses from the summer’s ill-fated general strike on Puget Sound and the Pacific Northwest. Against Carmody’s wish, O’Connor sent him back to Brooklyn. Carmody feared Brooklyn. Feared what was coming to it. Wanted instead to go out west with his boss, far from New York. Does not want to come back to Brooklyn where there is sure to be another war for power and sway over the racket of labor. But back here again he is, where the cost of human life is always cheapest.

  * * *

  IN APRIL, WOLCOTT OF THE NEW York Dock Company—the union’s biggest enemy in Brooklyn—had caught wind of Carmody and Joseph Garrity recruiting his Red Hook employees into the ILA. Wolcott hired Dinny Meehan as a starker to kill Carmody for five hundred dollars. Meehan then hired his trusted childhood friend, Tanner Smith, to do the job. Smith, a lowly Greenwich Village ex-gangster-turned-dockboss had then paid Carmody to disappear. Carmody’s life had been spared, so he took the “fifty dime” Smith gave him and planned on never returning to the city.

  Tanner Smith had played his hand well. Or so he believed. Instead of killing Carmody, Smith used the opportunity to try and muscle himself into the union’s upper folds. Smith pocketed most of the money his old friend Meehan gave him and told Carmody to tell King Joe and T. V. O’Connor of the ILA that he’d saved Carmody’s life.

  “I can turn all o’ the longshoremen on the Brooklyn waterfront to ILA,” Smith told Carmody, handing him the bullet he should have killed him with. “If only I was a ILA man, of course.”

  “Fuck Tanner Smith,” Carmody says under his breath as he drags and exhales again, floating on the deck of the Brooklyn-bound lighter and looking up to the shadows of the two bridges that connect Brooklyn to Manhattan. Striking a match and cupping it in his hand, Thos pulls out the bullet Tanner Smith gave him and turns it in his fingers. “I’m gonna put this in your back, Tanner.”

  * * *

  UP IN BUFFALO, CARMODY HAD PUT in a formal request to O’Connor to accompany him to the west coast.

  “I can’t go back to the city,” Carmody had explained. “I can’t go. King Joe don’ care if I live or die and Brooklyn’s run by the Irish on the north docks, the I-talians in the south. With the New York Dock Company between ’em there’s no way we can bring them together under the ILA flag. It’s just a tangled mess.”

  “What happened with the Irishman ye were werkin’ with in Brooklyn?” O’Connor asked. “What was the man’s name?”

  “Joseph Garrity.”

  “Joe Garrity, that’s right. Where’s he?”

  “Uh . . .” Carmody scratched his chin. “I heard his nephew and a few other Whitehanders got ’em, burnt ’em alive in McAlpine’s Saloon, Red Hook.”

  “Jaysus,” O’Connor said, noticeably angered. “What else?”

  Carrying some of O’Connor’s bags toward a car, Carmody continued, “Bunch o’ I-talian ILA men were killt, beaten up, and a guy named Non Connors was the only one charged.”

  “Non?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He was Lovett’s right-hand man in Red Hook.”

  “That right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s an interesting t’ing, t’is,” O’Connor said, looking up in thought. “And Tanner Smith says he can turn Brooklyn to ILA?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “Ye t’ink he can do it?”

  Carmody saw his chances of going out west dwindling by his telling the truth. “No, Tanner Smith can’t turn Brooklyn to ILA. More importantly, the ILA can’t hire Tanner Smith. The newspapers already say the International Longshoremen’s Association is made up of a bunch o’ ex-cons and thugs. Smith was best friends with Owney Madden before they sent him up to the stir. And he’s close to Dinny Meehan to this very day. Best chance we have in turning them is to make a deal wit’ Lovett and make them two fight—Lovett an’ Meehan. Which’ll weaken the gang.”

  “No better man to do that than yerself,” O’Connor said, looking at him, then giving his order. “Go back to Brooklyn and make a deal with Bill Lovett. We were able to bring the south Brooklyn I-talians into the ILA by makin’ Paul Vaccarelli a vice president in New Yark. Offer the same to Lovett.”

  “Meehan will expect us to be goin’ to Lovett.”

  “And?” O’Connor said, picking up h
is own bags. “When Meehan finds out ye’re still alive, he’ll go after Tanner Smith fer not killin’ ye. In the meantime we’ll be comin’ up from the south with I-talians t’rough Lovett’s Red Hook. Yer job is to make a deal with Lovett against Meehan. If what they say about Lovett’s true, he’ll want to take the gang over one day. He hates Meehan, is that right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Perfect. Lovett’ll be lookin’ fer ways to strengthen his forces. We’ve got the whole o’ the ILA behind us. Make a deal with Lovett,” O’Connor points at Carmody. “Get him and all his men to join the ILA and we’ll help him take down Meehan. That’s yer job. Eventually we’ll get all o’ them Brooklyn bhoys to turn.”

  “And if that don’ work?” Carmody sneered.

  “T’will,” O’Connor said.

  “Might not. Lovett hates I-talians.”

  “Look, man,” O’Connor said, putting a hand on Carmody’s shoulder. “Yer the man fer the job. There’s no other. Ye get Brooklyn in better shape and I’ll make ye King Joe’s right-hand man, treasurer of New Yark. Ye’ll be rich with the handouts, ye know it. I know ye want to come with me out west, but it’s King Joe who’ll take this over in a few years. Until that day comes, I need him watched. He’ll kill me if he gets his way, King Joe will. I need someone I can trust to watch that man, and ye’ll do. Yer a good man, Thos. Now what happens if Lovett don’t come our way? What will ye do then?”

  Carmody bowed his head in both humility and concern, “It won’t turn easy, Brooklyn.”

  “We got half already with the I-talians. If it was easy, I’d ask someone else. What’ll ye do?”

  “If it don’ work, I got inroads wit’ one o’ Meehan’s men. Vincent Maher is the fella’s name. He secretly goes down to the Adonis Social Club south o’ the Gowanus Canal for the prostitutes. It’s owned by Jack Stabile and his son Sixto, and Jack and Sixto Stabile are in Frankie Yale’s pocket. Frankie Yale is in Paul Vaccarelli’s pocket. Paul Vaccarelli is in our pocket.”

  O’Connor nodded in respect to Carmody’s sharp mind, “What do ye plan on doin’ with this Vincent Maher feller?”

  “If I can’t make a deal wit’ Lovett, I’ll have to make a deal wit’ Meehan.”